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"Mom, I want this program next year. I'll take it. I'll take it every year that I'm here."

Those are a few comments General Motors Engineering Technician Justin Belaire says he hears from Middle School at Parkside students.

And Belaire says it's aspirations like these that drive him to sometimes work 12 hours a day to make room for volunteering at the school through the Society of Automotive Engineers and the GM Foundation's "A World in Motion" program.

For eight weeks, Belaire has been teaching the automotive and engineering program to 12 sixth- and seventh-graders after school with help from Parkside science teacher Aleta Damm.

The students built electric-powered cars by tinkering with gear ratios and multiplications of torque. Their task: to equalize the car's power so that it can drive up a ramp.

"I'm trying to make it into a four-wheel," 12-year-old sixth-grader Lee Roach said. "It's kind of like Legos. It's really fun."

The students showed their cars off to family and school officials at their last meeting of the year Tuesday, June 7.

"The kids weren't intimidated by the math," Damm said. "It's been crazy."

One student in particular, who Damm referred to as the "star" and Belaire said has all the answers, 12-year-old sixth grader Haylee Hampton, said the math is actually her favorite part.

"I learned you need more gears with a four-wheel drive than you need with a two-wheel drive," Hampton said. "My favorite part is calculating that because I like math a lot."

Damm said the plan is to continue "A World in Motion" in the future and run through the other two programs, which are making fuel cells and gliders.

"Our plan is to run them through each one so that if a kid comes in as a sixth-grader by the time they are an eighth-grader they can run through each three," Damm said.

Hampton said she hopes the gliders come next year, because she's "always had the dream of making a car that can transform into an airplane."

That puts a smile on Belaire's face, who says the engineering industry will be experiencing a retirement crisis in the next five years.

"This isn't just about automotive," Belaire said. "It's about engineering. It's about trying to step up the students ability to learn about this stuff. So really it starts now to be able to find people to hire in the workforce and I think that is going to lead to a lot of demand for people in some of those jobs. And that is basically one of the reasons why I wanted to go out there and kind of start this."

Belaire attended a GM meeting in the Detroit-area the morning of June 7, where executives talked about the importance of developing education in engineering, specifically the AWIM program.

And when he got to Parkside later that day, he brought with him something that proves his and Damm's efforts are making an impact, as if aspiring middle-school students wasn't enough.

"I won the 2016 'A World in Motion' Rookie of the Year Award," Belaire said. "And that is a pretty big award, that is bragging rights I guess. But I am not doing it for that. I am just doing it for the kids.

"It is about these kids who might really need the extra hand in life."